Foxtel’s Amanda Laing adds content to her remit in latest restructure
Foxtel’s chief commercial officer, Amanda Laing, is set to add content to her remit in the latest restructure at the News Corp-owned subscription TV business.
Laing’s new role, chief commercial and content officer, will include entertainment and sport, as part of a change which will better integrate Foxtel’s three core offerings – Foxtel, Kayo and Binge – and its wider operations.
Laing has increased her remit to include content
In an email to staff, Foxtel CEO Patrick Delany said the changes would create a more unified business.
“These changes recognise that entertainment and sports content is core to everything we do and that we are now ‘leveraging’ group assets across the Foxtel, Kayo and Binge businesses to reach more subscribers than ever before and make forward-looking investment and operational decisions,” said Delany.
“It is a natural progression to bring entertainment and sports together, so we approach content decisions and investments for the group’s future, without being caught up in structures and silos of the past.”
Foxtel’s executive director of television, Brian Walsh, will be taking on a new role leading the Foxtel Originals division. This will see him leading local production commissions across Australian drama, lifestyle, factual and entertainment production.
Steve Crawley has been promoted to executive director of Fox Sports. Both he and Walsh will report to Laing. Rebecca McCloy, director of acquisitions and sports partnerships and Stephen Baldwin, director of entertainment, will also report to Laing.
Fox Sports boss Peter Campbell will take on a new role as executive director of transformation implementation, working with Foxtel chief product and strategy officer Alice Mascia who will be leaving the business at the end of the year to return to Italy. Her partner, Mauro di Pietro Paolo, Foxtel’s chief information officer, will also leave.
“This role builds on Peter’s successful track record of transformation and delivery at Fox Sports, by providing additional executive leadership to drive the next phase of performance improvement across the Foxtel Group, including the introduction of new ways of working,” said Delany.
Delany’s email to staff said retail churn is the lowest it has been in two years thanks to changes at the business, and that the mass of cuts across the business has ‘created a leaner, more efficient, company’ through ‘right-sizing’ its cost base.
“This reorganisation recognises that we are now a more diversified business with interests that extend from the traditional Foxtel business to advertising, sports production, entertainment creation and new streaming businesses,” Delany said.
Chief marketing and sales officer, Kieren Cooney, will add ‘customer’ to his title and have end-to-end responsibility for all customer interactions. Lesley Portwain and customer service will now report to Cooney.
Ant Hearne, chief commercial officer of Kayo, has been promoted to executive director for the sports streaming service and Alison Hurbert-Burns will be executive director of Binge. Both will report to Julian Ogrin who stays on as CEO of both streaming platforms.
“These organisational changes are designed to unlock the Foxtel Group’s full potential. I appreciate these changes are significant, and in some areas, there is additional detail to work through in the coming weeks, which we will keep you up to date with through your individual teams,” said Delany.
topics
Alice Mascia
Alison Hurbert-Burns
Amanda Laing
Ant Hearne
Binge
Brian Walsh
Foxtel
Julian Ogrin
kayo
Kayo Sport
Kieren Cooney
Lesley Portwain
Mauro di Pietro Paolo
Patrick Delany
Peter Campbell
Rebecca McCloy
Stephen Baldwin
Steve Crawley
This is hardly ‘journalism’. You have literally taken a press release (full of corporate spin) and printed it. You guys continue to fail to flush out any real (or factual) insights into Foxtel, or it’s slow and deserved decline into oblivion.
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Foxtel is the master of the facade – everything looks great out front but an absolute show behind the scenes. Constant re-structures and mass redundancies that somehow escape mainstream media attention are made worse by their insistence on re-branding channels that recycle the same old content. Call centres shut down in Australia while customers are forced to speak to agents at home in the Phillipines and South Africa. And in the midst of this pandemic they receive additional funding from the government? Worst of all are the bloated management teams where everyone has a fancy title and salary package despite the business losing money.
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